You are Unlacing my heart’s matrix You are Brittle lacunae in my bones You are Baffled buffoon in my box You are My balatron from Barnum and Bailey Sputtering Inflected infected lexemes and locutions Morphological languid linguistics Brought down to ex haus tion… Having ab sconded from your flagRant lips All flags are waVinG wAr nings in wailing w inds Like a mal adJusted jester you jUst sit there Barely jEsting Like a Therapist on Theraflu So what am I to do?
Trounced goaded by your giant girth
Inside I am screaming!
Like a trapped Slattern to a pillory
Sh irking fictitious flames stolen from Zeus! You are an onus to my sanity
And an anchor to my vanity So the answer is NO! I don’t want to marry you! You are a bawdy brawny bozo! As we say in French: “Un grivois sans voix…”
Yet still you are MY burly brethren boor…
Giving fit formidable dry thumps… ˈyəummy- Come here…you BIG dumb c*m dump!
On dine ensemble ce soir, chéri?
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American poet, educator, author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University Online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, the University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon and elsewhere. He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.
John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.
I once stood at the edge of a rusty, old bridge, looming over the abandoned train station below. To this day, I still wonder why I was drawn to that station, and why I wanted to end my life there. I come from a refugee family, a family that knew nothing about life in exile except how to eat, make money, drink, and work until you’d smoked through an entire pack of cigarettes. My parents were too old to work but too young to truly enjoy life. I had a twin brother who died just seconds after we were born. Maybe that’s why my mother always saw me as “the special one”—though never in a way that felt special to me.
My father cared about my health, but he cared more about the money I gave him from whatever jobs I could manage. Sometimes, he’d spend it on lottery tickets or buy my mother expensive gifts for no reason at all. On my birthday, all they talked about was my dead twin brother. I never felt their presence, their support. Eventually, I stopped going to school because I had no friends, and I lacked the knowledge I so desperately needed. Everyone from my high school moved on to successful lives. Even Linda—the only girl I ever truly loved.
It was love at first sight with her, but life dealt us both terrible hands. She survived a horrific car crash that left her with brain damage, but her parents weren’t so lucky. Afterward, Linda moved in with her blind, widowed grandmother and dropped out of school. She ended up working as a stripper at a well-known club, lying about her age with a fake ID.
I’d go there sometimes, buy an ordinary beer, and sit pretending I was waiting for a friend. I avoided making eye contact with anyone except the bartender, a divorced woman who seemed as lost as I was. She and I would have fun together occasionally when her kids were with their father in another city. My life was never important; I felt like an unwanted child in God’s land. My days were dull, each one bleeding into the next unless I was too drunk or too depressed to notice.
Then one day, the bartender took her own life. They found her hanging in her living room. No one knew why or how it had come to that. Her children were oblivious, but her ex-husband heard the news and eventually sent them to an orphanage. They were too young to understand that their mother’s death was linked to her battle with alcoholism.
After that, I developed a new habit—going to the abandoned train station to think about ending it all. I felt like there was no one left for me. Who did I have to live for? I wasn’t old, but the grey hairs were already creeping in, along with endless negative thoughts. The bartender had been the only one who knew about my visits to that station. After she died, I felt more alone than ever. Sometimes, I would stay at her house, and she’d treat me like a boyfriend, a lover, even if it was just for a few hours. But after she was gone, the silence became unbearable.
Linda noticed the change in me. I became quieter, more withdrawn. She started talking to me again, trying to reach out. One night, I told her everything that had been weighing on me. I even told her that it would be my last night at the club. When I said that, she started to cry, and so did I. I ran out, not wanting her to see me break down, and I ended up at the train station again, ready to end it all.
But then Linda appeared, wearing a man’s autumn jacket. She screamed my name, ran toward me, and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe.
She whispered, “I love you. Hug me tight and let the world fade away. Your embrace is my refuge, where I feel truly alive.”
With a broken smile, I replied, “When I see you or talk to you, I don’t have to work so hard to be happy. It just happens.”
We kissed under the night sky and took an Uber back to the club, where Linda handed in her resignation. For good.
On Monday, we all resumed school and everyone promised to study well. On that week, we all wrote our first test which was to test the seriousness of a student when they have gone away for holidays. Like water in a basket, the first, second, and third weeks came and passed. On the fourth week, a new student was enrolled in our class, a female student.
We have a classmate called Ummul Khayr who acted as if she knew the girl before. They were classmates in the formal school she attended.
On Tuesday morning, the new student introduced herself to the whole class. She was friendly but a bit proud.
Fatima was the kind that felt proud of herself in the classroom which I hated. So I spoke to her rudely about her arrogance but it led to a serious odium between me and her in the classroom. Fatima and I never spoke to each other in a good manner but we were always being rude to each other. We always had to fight in the classroom every single day since the day we had a misunderstanding with each other.
The first term went by without counseling with each other but we would always find new abusive words to stab each other with. The second term came again and went by but still battling also the third term. We were given a holiday for the end of the school year which makes me think about the issues. I asked myself: Should I stop this rubbish fight? or what will I do?
After the resumption of SS2, I tried my best possible ways to dodge the girl problem but all went in vain till the day I slapped her but still regretted my actions.
The first term passed by and we resumed as “not friends not enemies” and I really enjoyed myself like that. The second term was so special to me because I met the love of my life. In the middle of second term, the school embarked on a excursion to “BILKI BAB”. On that day, I just don’t believe myself when I realized that “NURAINI AND FATIMA” were chatting and smiling with each other.
I have a classmate called Salihu who saw us talking to each other. He announced it to the whole class member and wrote on a paper that “Nuraini and Fatima have started playing love”. some of my friends told me that is there a wish and Salihu said he had a dream about it before.
On our way back to school after the excursion, the bus was full with the story of the new Romeo and Juliet. We continue like that until the speech and prize giving day of my school. The school gave one month holiday that distracted our relationship. So as a newbie poet I wrote a poem and placed it on my cupboard.
Fatimah You are like a weapon that budged the gap between me and odium You are the bridge that bridges my ribs to build a household of love in my heart You are halal theft who took my heart without permission You are a kind kidnapper that kidnapped my feelings and emotions You curtained my heart so that nobody has access to it again Let me tell you, Fatimah My heart is your palace Where you can do anything you like inside, Twerk yourself as fun My heart is a palace that the kingdom In it never ends but you are only the queen forever.
We resumed SS3 in which I became shy of her. So I wanted her to first speak to me but no response.
NOW I bought a chocolate and wrapped it in a lovers’ package gift container, I dressed up in a very ironed suit and walked to the front of the classroom. I brought out the gift and started writing with three colors of markers on the whiteboard.
A hyperstructure of surreal evocation: a review of Kaos Karma by Rus Khomutoff
Kaos Karma, the latest chapbook release from Rus Khomutoff, has remarkable weight for such a slim volume. Coming in at a mere nine pages, the book, were it not a digital only release, would feel delicate in the hand, something only barely able to delay its inevitable collapse. This feeling is soon swept away once you pull back its figurative cover and begin to read. What is found within is a poetry that is anything but delicate. It is a poetry wrought with energy and power. A poetry that does not relent and does not care for the easily overwhelmed senses. Perhaps it is a blessing that it is so short.
Kaos Karma does not bring the reader gently into its message. From the opening page, read as a solid block of full caps text, the reader is almost overwhelmed by the concrete, almost monolithic structure of the work. Its appearance seems almost intended to intimidate the reader. There are no soft hands to guide you as you read on, you are hit again and again by these unrelenting blocks of language. These almost endless sentences are like surreal billboards and indeed I would very much like to see some of this work as billboards. A wakeup from the endless detritus of the advertising world. A hyperstructure of surreal evocation.
The language of the book carries a heavy taste of surrealism, those dreamlike and visionary sentences that burn and strike the mind. ‘HEAR THE SECRET SUN SPEAK BLOOD LABYRINTH BLOOD FREED FROM THE WEIGHT OF ALL TIME ALL THE DARK REBIRTHS ARE MINE’ is but one example. Though this heavy language is broken up at times with a kind of new-age esotericism, ‘NOSTALGIA IS A DRUG’, ‘BE ALL THINGS IN ALL TIME’, the self-help for the burnt out searchers on the edge of an insane whirling mountain. Guidance from Khomutoff to where? And when? Who knows? This combination of the abstract and concrete in the language give the effect of the reader being brought back into a recognisable and understandable world, though only for a moment. Once the surreal language reengages the reader is sent back off into the vortices of mental propulsion.
And there is a purpose here, though it is obscure. The writing is taking you somewhere, like a guidebook, like the great Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book of the dead. ‘ALAS THE CHILD WHO LIVES IN A MYTHICAL, PARADISICAL TIME RENEWING THE WORLD.’ But unlike that holy ancient text which reaches in to take the reader through the labyrinth of illusion through to a clarity of consciousness, through to the other side, Kaos Karma does not state which of its threads is illusion and which reality. Perhaps there is neither in Khomutoff’s cosmology, or perhaps both in a swirling miasma of meaning and nonsense. It is up to the reader to decide.
While only a brief taste, it is a taste so full and potent the reader will find themselves at the other end of Kaos Karma with the heady feeling of both clarity and confusion. This is an artwork both highly idiosyncratic and universal all at once. I have spoken often of the idea of the third text, a text that exists only through the combination of the mind of the reader and the work they are reading. A text that exists entirely unique and which is conjured by strange and powerful, but obscure language. Kaos Karma is such a work. The reader is all the better for having experienced it.
Nathan Anderson is a poet from Mongarlowe, Australia. He is the author of numerous books and has had work appear widely both online and in print. He is a member of the C22 experimental writing collective. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter/X/Bluesky @NJApoetry.
“You were born from the Rays of God’s Majesty when the stars were in their perfect place.”
~RUMI
God I return to you in the lights of a star…shining bright with the light of love. Love from the beginning I return without darkness for I have seen the wonders of my soul. The hidden treasure of your spark within me. The world has not covered my soul in sin or emptiness leaving me without you in my heart. Your truth that speaks in me in the wee hours of the morning as the world sleeps forever more. I find my soul among the stars circling the outer rim of Saturn’s moon. I’m that star to the right of your heart. O God never to become dim for you created me to shine forever more.
“When you lose all sense of self the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish…” ~RUMI
Where can I go O God where you do not exist? I have not traveled far enough to not feel your Holy presence within my soul. Delightful thoughts about the beginning of time together. Reaching for the clouds, as I lay in the fields of joy wishing to see the skies once more. Before the clouds cover the moon and the sun fades into the distinct mountains of Vermont. Once we had a conversation, as I sat on the porch wondering about my life. It was a conversation about my beginning without end. My heart listened intently as you spoke of salvation and redemption. Christ the messiah came alive within me. No more doubt nor sin to confuse my aching soul. For I had received the communion of life with these three words: You are forgiven.
